Metallurgy. REAUMUR. L'Art de convertir le Fer Forgé en Acier...

4to mm. 250 x 190, pp. [20], 566, [3], with 17 copper plates folded out text. Contemporary full leather binding, spine with 6 ribs, gilt titles and ornamnts on the spine. Sign of wear and defcts on covers, fine specimen.

First edition of this important work in the history of metallurgy, which is seen in the series of Descriptions of Arts and Crafts ... approuvés for the Académie Royale des Sciences in 1762. R.-A. de Réaumur [1683-1757], an illustrious physicist and naturalist, better known for his model of term, was a prominent figure of the Académie Royale des Sciences, born under the pressure of Colbert had a strong interest in the new technologies that are sought developing in the first half of the 18th century, you are tested in many other languages; the mercantilist politics of Colbert aimed in fact to emancipate France from the dependence from abroad in many productive sectors, like the sale of steel, whose R. methods studied in depth in France and abroad to improve its effectiveness.Honeyman, n. 2585: "Réaumur was the first to recognise that steel was impure iron than a rafined form of iron as was generally believed. He correctly showed that the amount of carbon [sulphur in the langage of eighteenth-century chemistry] is greatest in cast iron, less in steel, and least in wrought iron". Per un'analisi dettagliata degli esperimenti e delle ricerche di Reaumur in tale campo, cfr. Gillispie, D.S.B., XI/pp. 328-30. Zeitlinger, I/n. 3917. Hoover Collection, n. 677: "He revealed for the first time hitherto secret details of the process and also came very close to the correct explanation of the nature of steel, that is iron combined with a small quantity of carbon".